I nodded and swallowed back that gross feeling in my throat again. “Okay.”
“Yeah?”
I held back my long sigh, keeping my eyes on the title, “Ink Me!” on the mounted magazine while I wiped streaks across the glass. I wasn’t going to argue with him, I wasn’t going to care enough about the fact he didn’t remember my name, and I definitely wasn’t going to let him know how shitty he'd made me feel. In all actuality, this just made it easier for me to want to find another job. “Yup.”
My pride won out because I didn’t turn back to look at him while he stood in place another minute, and when Blake walked with me to my car twenty minutes later after closing, I didn’t look at Dex again then either.
Fuck him. Not screw him, or damn him. Fuck him. He deserved the f-bomb for being such a dick and heaven knows I saved that word for special occasions.
Just because I let my conscience guide me into keeping the job out of respect for Sonny—and my need for some cash—didn’t mean I had to like my boss. It didn’t mean I had to let what happened go and get over the fire he’d breathed for no reason.
Friggin' asshole.
~ * ~ *
"What's wrong?"
Sonny was going to blow a gasket. There was going to be smoke coming out of his ass and ears. I just knew it.
I'd underestimated him my entire life. When I was a kid, I'd thought he hated me because Will and I had lived with our dad and he hadn't, except for yearly visits that lasted until Son was old enough to tell him to screw off. As a teenager, I thought he wouldn't care too much about the disasters that had stockpiled in my life.
But the fact was, he had. As an adult, Sonny had become the most solid figure in my life even if he lived over a thousand miles away.
We hadn't been raised together, obviously. Sonny had lived in Austin with his mom, where I'd grown up with mine in Florida nine years later. We'd settled for seeing each other once a year when I was younger, when my dad would take Will and I to Austin to see Sonny. So I'd never had that typical overprotective older brother situation as a kid until he got old enough to drive himself, and by that time, Dad was long gone.
Sonny Taylor, whose mom hated Curt Taylor with a magnitude that led her to move out of state the moment Son graduated high school, did care for me. He loved me in his own way, and he knew my facial expressions.
So when I walked into his house, still more hurt than pissed off over what I'd overheard that afternoon, he'd caught onto the clues like Sherlock Holmes.
And now I was a little worried to tell him because I'd promised to quit lying. Apparently, I'd run out of get-out-of-lying passes when I didn't tell him they'd found more cells in my arm.
"Iris, tell me," he insisted.
Crap. He never called me by my first name.
I blurted the tiny story out, feeling like a kid again who wanted her mom or dad to make things better.
The words rode a boomerang in my head over and over again. The moment I'd gotten to Sonny's house, it all hit me straight in the solar plexus.
The guy was just a dick. An ass who didn't know how to get past the things that made us all up—the good and the bad.
When I was in the hospital, any of the times—all of the times—I'd met so many people who just couldn't let go of the anger. The resentment. Frustration with the hand they got dealt. I mean, I got it. I did. If anyone understood what it was like to think that life was unfair, I'd probably won the award a few years in a row.
But at some point, you had to get over it. I didn't want to be a bitter old lady the rest of my life.
Now I was stuck working for a bitter, mean, happiness-sucking leech.
"It's not a big deal, Son. Whatever. I don't care what he thinks."
Liar. Liar. Big, fat liar.
Sonny's lips twisted in a way I'd only seen once before. Barely restrained anger hid beneath the thick layer of his red-brown beard. "That fucking dumbass," he ground out. He cocked his head to one side, and then the other. A deep breath blew out from between his lips. "I'm gonna knock his teeth in."
He was being completely serious. So, so serious about defending my honor, I couldn't help it.
I started laughing.
"It's fine." I snorted. "Son, it's really fine. Knock his teeth in another day." I laughed again. "Or maybe once I find another job, okay? Then you can bust all his teeth and his kneecaps for all I care."
Those hazel eyes that were an exact replica of mine, narrowed. And then he quirked a little smile. "His kneecaps too?"
I shrugged. "Why not? Call him a friggin' idiot while you do it."
Sonny shook his head, full out grinning by that point. "To think I used to call you a good girl. My little sis telling me to break someone's kneecaps. You might make me cry, Ris." He leaned forward across the armchair I was sitting in and ruffled my hair. "Thatta girl."
I snorted and batted his hand away.
His face sobered a moment later, his gaze serious. "Nobody talks to you like that, you hear me? I don't care if it's another member of the MC or some asshole on the street. If somebody takes their anger out on you, I'll beat the shit out of them."
Lord. Where had he been when I was fifteen and got made fun of? I pushed the thought out of my mind and nodded, settling in just to make him feel better.
"Yes, father." I gave him a little smile. "Quit stressing, would you?"
By the way his jaw clenched, you could tell he wasn't exactly happy with staying quiet but he didn't argue against me.
"Fine, but wear whatever the fuck you want, kid. Wear a three-piece suit just to piss him off," he grunted. Sonny leaned forward again to mess with my hair until I swatted at him.
He stood up, grabbed his phone out of his pocket and disappeared down the hall that led toward his bedroom, silently.
Wait...
Sonny wasn't the silent type.
"What are you doing?" I yelled out after him.
His answer, "Nothing!"
A minute later, from the confines of his bedroom, he started yelling.
What did I do? I tip-toed into the hallway that led toward his bedroom and tried to listen in. Just for a minute. That was it.
"—the fuck is wrong with you?...She's shy with strangers, Dex. Shy. You think your attitude helps that any?....No. No. Imagine if she was your sister. How the hell would you feel if somebody called her a bitch....Well, that's Lisa. That's not Ris. Imagine if it was Marie...Did you hear me? What if—no. Fuck you, Dex. If something crawls up your ass, don't take it out on her. You act like a bitch—"
I might have smiled. Big.
Chapter Five
I wore my usual clothes the next day. Khaki pants and a white, long-sleeved button-up shirt were my big "fuck you" to Dex. Throwing all those "fuck you" comments around sort of made me feel empowered. Just a little, at least.
He'd taken a long look at me when I showed up at the door fifteen minutes until four and didn't say anything. Neither did I.
My silent treatment—and eye aversion—lasted exactly eight work hours. For eight hours, I managed to dodge Dex during business hours by bothering Blake. We'd only spoken when he needed me to schedule something and when a customer came in for him.
Each and every single time, I’d feel this incredibly nauseating pressure on my neck. It was my body’s wordless reminder of how carelessly mean he'd been, and how he'd made me feel like I needed a tetanus shot afterward. I'd stayed up the night before wondering why it bothered me so much that he thought I was stupid. It was really his fault I didn't understand what I was supposed to do, wasn't it?